


avoid the headlines

by gooseberry



Series: Listen to the Never [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/F, Female Ignis Scientia, Female Noctis Lucis Caelum, Frottage, Genderswap, Public Relations, Secret Relationship, Spanking, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-06-18 09:45:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15483012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/gooseberry
Summary: All things considered, they’ve been lucky. The only pictures of Noct at the party are from the earlier hours, when the alcohol was still being passed around surreptitiously. The worst misconduct that can be gleaned from the photographs are the teenagers (none of whom are Noct, thank the Six for small mercies) leaping into the pool, more or less fully clothed. In short, the photographs are far from incriminating.“It could be good,” Aiellus points out as Ignis studies the pictures. “It makes her look normal, approachable.”“Sympathetic,” Ignis agrees. The teenagers in the picture are all Noct’s classmates, as far as she’s aware. Noct presumably knows their names, most likely speaks to them regularly; for all that they’re strangers to Ignis, they’re each a part of Noct’s life.“She looks like just a regular kid. That’s the route most everyone’s taken: ‘Princess sneaks out with friends,’ innocuous things like that.” Aiellus hands Ignis another photograph, this one of Noct laughing with two other girls. There’s a bowl of popcorn resting in between the girls, and there are a few stray kernels scattered in Noct’s lap. Between the awkward angle and the spilled snacks, the photograph makes Noct look human.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a '100 words of the morning after' prompt.

Noct is drunk enough that Ignis has to more or less pour her into bed. Noct’s limbs, long and slender and pale, go every which way, and there is a small, spiteful part of Ignis—the part that is exhausted and cold, longing for the warm softness of her own bed—that wants to leave Noct like this, sprawled across her bed, still dressed and her arms and legs at angles that promise sore muscles in the morning. The larger part of Ignis, though, is sympathetic and even a little fond; that’s the part that made Ignis’s heart beat faster when Noct had gone soft and pliant once she was in Ignis’s arms, tucking her head in close to Ignis’s neck.

It’s the larger part that wins out, and that sends Ignis from the room to fetch a glass of water and aspirin and a warm, damp washcloth. She sets the glass and pills on Noct’s bedside table, and she sits herself on Noct’s bed, close enough that her thigh is pressing against Noct’s side. Undressing Noct is a lesson in frustration, partially because Noct is just aware enough to—at the most inopportune moments, because she is consistent if nothing else—try to be helpful, which is anything but helpful. It’s also a lesson in frustration because Noct’s skin is warm and smooth, damp with sweat, and Noct sighs and murmurs and squirms as Ignis wipes her down with the washcloth.

She manages to get Noct into pyjamas and the water and aspirin into Noct before Noct is snoring, and she considers it a moderate success, all things considered. Noct is home, safe and unharmed. Everything else can wait until morning, after Ignis and Noct have both had to chance to pull their wits together again. There’s no reason to be borrowing tomorrow’s trouble; it’s better to lie beside Noct, turned so that she can rest her forehead against the space between Noct’s shoulder blades. It’s better to close her eyes, to lay her arm over Noct’s waist; better to tangle her feet with Noct’s, and to twine her fingers with Noct’s. 

x

Ignis’s temper stays banked through most of the morning, though she’s relatively certain that’s because Noct is still sleeping in her room, and is therefore out of sight and out of mind. By the time she hears sounds of life from Noct’s room, it’s already early afternoon and Ignis has managed to catch up on the majority of her backlogged tasks. When Ignis hears the door to the bathroom shut, she rises from the table and moves into the kitchen. 

She is sipping a new mug of coffee when Noct finally emerges. Noct looks rather ill, her face paler than usual and dark circles under her eyes, and she’s squinting through the sunlight that is coming in through the windows. Ignis clears her throat; Noct flinches at the sound, and Ignis takes care to speak quietly: “Do you feel like you can stomach anything? I’d like to get some food in your stomach, if possible.” 

Noct makes a faint sound that, if Ignis stretches her imagination, could be described as a moan and makes her notably unsteady way to the couch. Ignis watches as Noct crawls onto the couch, inching over the cushions like a particularly miserable caterpillar. The imagery of a caterpillar feels even more apt when Noct drags the throw off the back of the couch and wraps it around herself, twisting herself into a cocoon. 

Ignis spends the rest of the day on the couch with Noct, coaxing Noct into sipping water and eating bites of toast. She smooths her hand over Noct’s forehead and pets away the pained wrinkles at the corners of Noct’s eyes; she kisses Noct: the corner of her mouth, and the pulse of her throat, and the delicate skin at the underside of her wrist. Noct takes it all like it’s her due, like there’s nowhere else Ignis should be and nothing else that Ignis should be doing. She unwinds from her cocoon over the afternoon, crawling further and further into Ignis’s lap like a particularly pricklish and demanding cat. By the time the sun is setting, Ignis is lying on the couch and Noct is lying on top of her, a warm, comfortable weight that makes arousal curl warm and lazy in Ignis’s body, a delicious throbbing in her clit that she imagines might be in time with Noct’s heartbeat.

“Are you mad?” Noct asks not long after. The whole apartment is dark now, and Ignis thinks that might be why Noct asks. Maybe it’s only now, when their faces are just indistinct shadows, that she is brave enough to ask.

“I am,” Ignis says, because she has never lied to Noct. She lifts her head enough to kiss Noct, a kiss that glances off Noct’s hair. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

Noct grows heavier somehow, and Ignis runs her fingers through Noct’s hair, down to the nape of her neck; she lets her hand rest there, her palm cupping the back of Noct’s skull and her thumb petting the delicate curve behind Noct’s ear.

x

Ignis spends another night in Noct’s apartment. When sober, Noct’s not particularly generous when it comes to sharing her bed. She’s affectionate on her own terms and in her own measure, and she begins the night draped over Ignis, much like she had been out on the couch. Before long, however, she’s huffing with sleepy displeasure, complaining, “‘S too hot.”

Ignis lifts her arm, letting Noct go. Noct rolls away, sighing with pleasure when she finds a cool spot in the bed. She sprawls out, her arms and legs starfishing across most of the bed. The bed is large enough that, if Ignis stays still, there is a stretch of empty space between her body and Noct’s, and most nights that they share Noct’s bed are like this: space between their bodies, so that Noct doesn’t overheat and so that Ignis doesn’t get an elbow in her stomach. Most nights they share Noct’s bed also have a compromise: Noct sleeps half-turned onto her side, her back to Ignis, and Ignis reaches out so she can touch Noct’s back. Sometimes she slips her hand beneath Noct’s shirt and rests her fingertips on Noct’s skin, just above the waistband of her pyjama bottoms; other times she sweeps the backs of her fingers up and down the line of Noct’s spine. Sometimes, when she feels particularly daring and Noct is already snoring, she sneaks in long enough to press a kiss—closed-mouth and chaste, light enough it won’t be a nuisance—where the collar of Noct’s shirt gives way to the warm skin of Noct’s neck.

When Ignis’s alarm goes off a few hours later, Ignis drags herself from the bed; Noct only stirs enough to move herself to Ignis’s newly-vacated spot and take up residence. Ignis’s eyes feel gritty from sleep, and she rubs them as she rests a knee on the bed, leaning down so she can try to coax Noct awake.

“Noct,” Ignis murmurs, and Noct makes a questioning hum as Ignis strokes her arm. “I’m going into the Citadel.”

“Mhmm,” Noct hmms, and Ignis rolls her eyes as she straightens up.

She’s up earlier than usual. The sky is still dark outside, with the crisp coolness of early morning in the air, and the streets are empty of traffic. It doesn’t take long for her to reach her own apartment, and the sun is just beginning to rise by the time she’s showered and dressed for work. She considers her reflection carefully, looking for any possible flaws; bruises, whether they’re hickeys on her neck or bags under her eyes, are indicative of guilt. When she’s certain that she looks blameless—that there’s no record on her person of the nights spent at Noct’s apartment—she leaves for the Citadel.

x

All things considered, they’ve been lucky. The only pictures of Noct at the party are from the earlier hours, when the alcohol was still being passed around surreptitiously. The worst misconduct that can be gleaned from the photographs are the teenagers (none of whom are Noct, thank the Six for small mercies) leaping into the pool, more or less fully clothed. In short, the photographs are far from incriminating.

“It could be good,” Aiellus points out as Ignis studies the pictures. “It makes her look normal, approachable.”

“Sympathetic,” Ignis agrees. The teenagers in the picture are all Noct’s classmates, as far as she’s aware. Noct presumably knows their names, most likely speaks to them regularly; for all that they’re strangers to Ignis, they’re each a part of Noct’s life. 

“She looks like just a regular kid. That’s the route most everyone’s taken: ‘Princess sneaks out with friends,’ innocuous things like that.” Aiellus hands Ignis another photograph, this one of Noct laughing with two other girls. There’s a bowl of popcorn resting in between the girls, and there are a few stray kernels scattered in Noct’s lap. Between the awkward angle and the spilled snacks, the photograph makes Noct look human. 

“And the worst?”

“‘The Skinny on Insomnia’s Number One,’” Aiellus reads aloud. “‘Princess Bares All, Goes Skinny Dipping at House Party.’” 

Ignis’s heart doesn’t stop, but it certainly skips a beat before she manages to say faintly, “Tabloid trash, is it?”

“Pretty much. No pics, so it didn’t happen.” Aiellus shrugs at her, smiling like he’s trying to be reassuring. It’s appreciated, though it’s a struggle for Ignis to collect herself enough to tell him so.

“No problem,” he tells her, waving off her thanks, and when Ignis has gathered up the pictures, he adds, “Good luck with the king, by the way.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a "100 words of workplace conflicts" prompt.

“How is she, Ignis?”

“She’s fine, Your Majesty,” Ignis answers as she drops a curtsey. The king is sitting in an armchair, leaning heavily on the right armrest. He looks more tired than Ignis can remember seeing, and she is struck—not for the first time—that he is growing old. “She was tired and a little sick yesterday, but she’s fine.”

“She was hungover,” the king corrects her, and he takes the photographs she offers him. He waves her into the nearest chair, and Ignis sits, crossing her legs and folding her hands, waiting as the king examines the photographs of Noct. 

The king sighs over one of the photographs, and Ignis wonders if it’s the photo of Noct sitting on the shoulders of a boy. They’re standing in a doorway, and both of Noct’s hands are braced against the doorframe. It’s not typical behavior for Noct—she’s tender-hearted, and she’s shy and a little standoffish; she struggles with making friends, and she is usually content to fade as far into the background as she can. Ignis wonders how drunk she was by the time this photo was taken, how far Noct’s inhibitions had begun to slip; wonders if the room had spun around her dizzily as her classmate carried her on his shoulders. 

“Ignis,” the king asks, “how did this happen?”

“I was careless, sir.” 

He lifts his eyebrows, sounding pointedly disbelieving when he asks, “Were you?”

Ignis never lies to Noct, but she lies to the king. It’s not something she does frequently, but it has happened often enough over the years that she has learned the best way to do so. The best lies are those that are half-truths, and if a lie is surrounded by enough truths, it can become more difficult to pick out. She tells the king two truths and a lie:

“Noct had told me about the party,” she says. Lie: Noct had said she was going to stay home Friday night, that there was a new game she wanted to try.

“I should have been more diligent in vetting the event,” she says. Truth: Ignis should have paid closer attention to the people and places Noct has mentioned, and she should have caught what hints Noct let slip.

“I was overly confident,” she says. Truth: Ignis never lies to Noct, and she had foolishly assumed that Noct was equally truthful with her. She had thought that Noct’s regard for her—that their friendship—meant something more than it apparently does.

“I see,” the king says, looking back down to the photograph he’d sighed over. Noct, her legs wrapped around a young man’s neck; alternately, Noct with her knees thrown over a young man’s shoulders, or Noct with a young man’s head between her thighs. The innocence in the photo—the dozens of other classmates, the exaggerated face the boy is making for the camera, the lack of nudity or any type of eroticism—doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that, “The Council is concerned with how Noct may be perceived by the public.”

“Sir,” Ignis says, looking down at her hands. She knows what the king means and what the Council is implying. These moments—Noct spilling popcorn and Noct sitting on a boy’s shoulders and Noct laughing as her classmates leap into a pool—might be innocent, but they’re just fragments. What was Noct doing between each photo? And more importantly, what will people think Noct was doing? What will other nations think Noct was doing?

Ignis looks back up, watching as the king looks over the last photograph, then begins again from the beginning. She wonders if he is seeing the same things that she saw: the surprised happiness on Noct’s face, the easy comfort she seems to have with her classmates—this is a Noct neither of them seem to see. _Just a regular kid,_ Aiellus had said; something Noct never had the chance to be in the Citadel.

When he has reached the last photograph, he looks at up at her, frowning. (Ignis can’t remember the last time she saw the king smile; the Citadel is hardly a happy place for any of them.) The king taps the stack of photographs against the arm of his chair, then tucks them next to his leg. “Several Councilmembers have expressed their doubts in your ability to manage Noct’s conduct.”

Ignis bows her head as she says, “I understand, sir.”

“Ignis,” he says, “you understand that there will be an inquiry.”

“I understand, sir,” she says again, and she listens quietly as the king tells her of her failings in Council’s eyes.

x

“I lied to the king,” she says as she enters Noct’s living room. “My king. _Our_ king.”

Noct is sitting on the couch, and she’s looking up at Ignis with a surprised look on her face. Ignis wonders how loud she is, whether her voice sounds frantic to Noct. She feels frantic, like she’s about to go careening off the edge of a cliff, and Noct’s confusion only makes Ignis feel worse. It’s unfair, Noct’s lack of concern—unfair that she’s still in her pyjamas and she’s got a comic book in her hands; unfair that she’s been lying around her apartment doing nothing while Ignis has been at the Citadel for hours, trying to control the pictures and spin the stories and hide the truth. 

“Specs,” Noct says, and Ignis jerks her hand up, like that will ever be enough to shut Noct up. 

(It is. She doesn’t know how, but it is.)

“Don’t,” Ignis says. “I can’t listen to you right now. I just—” She covers her face with her hand and tries to take deep breaths. She manages all of three before she’s scrubbing her eyes and turning on her heel. 

She stops before she reaches the entryway, and she turns again. There’s nowhere Ignis can go, nowhere she can work out this fury. She turns again when she’s halfway down the hall toward Noct’s bedroom, because she thinks she might try to light it on fire if she sees it. She turns again, and again, and again, and finally fetches up against the kitchen counter. She lays her hands flat on the counter, on either side of the sink, and lets herself crumple over until her forehead is resting against the sink's cold, metal edge. 

Ignis isn’t sure how long she stays there, trying to swallow down the tears and the rage and the hurt. However long it is, Noct is quiet throughout the entirety. When Ignis is half-sure she has herself under control again, she looks up, wondering if Noct has fled for her bedroom. 

She hasn’t. She’s still sitting on the couch, staring at Ignis, and the expectancy on her face feels like a blow. 

“You lied to me,” Ignis says, feeling smaller and stupider than she ever has before. She hadn’t thought it could feel much worse, but the words make everything real. Noct had lied to her about a party—a stupid _party_ —and Ignis had believed her, because Ignis had been stupid enough to think that Noct would never lie to her. Ignis had been stupid enough to think—

“Ignis.” Noct is standing up from the couch, her hands held up like she’s talking to an animal. It’s fitting, maybe; Ignis feels about as stupid as some beast. “I think you need to sit—“

“What I need,” Ignis spits, stepping back across the kitchen, until her back is pressed against the far counter, “is to know why.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, and I’m sorry.” Noct’s still crossing the room, coming around the table, and Ignis is entirely regretful that she was stupid enough to trap herself here, in the kitchen. “I wasn’t thinking, and I messed up. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” Ignis repeats after her incredulously. “I can lose my job, Noct. They can take you away from me—”

“I won’t let them,” Noct interrupts, and the assurance in her voice feels like someone grinding salt into Ignis’s battered self. 

“Let them?” she explodes. “What could you do? You don’t get it, you can’t _do_ anything. You’re beholden to the Council, not the other way around. _You_ ask, and then they decide whether they say yes.”

“The Crown,” Noct begins with that stubborn assurance. 

“No!” Ignis is only aware of how hard she has slapped her hand against the countertop when she feels pain jolt up her arm. “You belong to the Crown, _not_ the other way around!”

It is quiet for a moment. Ignis is breathing hard, and she tries to catch her breath. Her hand is aching, just another hurt caused by this chain of youthful indiscretions; she shakes her hand and, staring down at her reddened palm, says, “Your body isn’t yours, Noct. It belongs to the government.”

“Like yours?” Noct asks from across the island. Her voice doesn’t seem to have lost any of its assurance, and Ignis feels her frustration begin to drain anyway, exhaustion taking its place. 

“Like mine,” she agrees, standing in Noct’s kitchen, slumped and feeling defeated. She doesn’t move as Noct rounds the island, coming into the kitchen, and she doesn’t protest when Noct takes her hand, inspecting Ignis’s palm. 

“The Council,” Ignis says, her voice sounding flat in her own ears, “have expressed their doubts in my ability to do my job. They’re right, of course.”

Noct breathes in sharply, and there is a small, petty part of Ignis—the part of her that’s still holding onto her exhausted anger—that hopes Noct feels even a fraction as hurt at that as Ignis had, when she had listened to the king list each failing the Council had found in her. Noct’s grip on her hand loosens, and Ignis pulls it back as Noct pushes forward, crowding Ignis back against the counter. Noct goes up onto her tiptoes, leaning into Ignis, and she cups Ignis’s face between her hands. Ignis tries to lean back, but she’s trapped in this corner Noct’s caught her in; there’s nowhere else to go, no way to duck away from Noct’s touch. 

“I’m sorry,” Noct is whispering, and she’s rubbing her thumbs across Ignis’s cheeks; it’s clumsy and rough, and it feels a little like she’s flaying Ignis. “Ignis, I’m so sorry.”

Ignis closes her eyes tight, and she clenches her hands into fists when she feels Noct lean up closer and press kisses against Ignis’s eyelids. All of Noct’s body is leaning into Ignis’s, a line of heat that runs from Ignis’s breasts to Ignis’s groin, and Ignis is feeling dizzy from something she can’t name. 

“You’re angry at me,” Noct says, and Ignis answers, “Yes.”

“Do you want to hit me?” Noct asks, and Ignis whispers, “Yes.”

Noct pulls back then, and Ignis opens her eyes, watching as Noct examines her face. Whatever it is that Noct sees, Noct doesn’t seem put out for long. She draws her hands back from Ignis’s face, and she grabs Ignis’s wrists instead, pulling them as she steps back from Ignis.

“C’mon,” Noct says, and Ignis follows without argument, letting Noct drag her into the bedroom, and drag her clothes from her body, and drag her onto the bed. Noct arranges her as she pleases, turning Ignis onto her side and tucking a pillow beneath Ignis’s head, pulling a sheet half over her body.

“Close your eyes,” Noct demands, and Ignis does, feeling too defeated to fight it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a '100 words of spanking' prompt.

She doesn’t quite sleep, but she thinks she dozes for a while, the world gone strange in a hyperrealistic sort of way. She’s aware of Noct lying beside her, closer than usual, her body warm and naked. Noct touches her sometimes, she thinks—she can feel her skin prickle over like she’s been shocked, the pressure of Noct’s touches like the sparks of static. When she does open her eyes again, Noct is lying beside her, turned on her side so that she can watch Ignis’s face.

“Are you feeling better?” Noct asks. Ignis can feel Noct’s body begin to move against her own, a lazy roll of Noct’s hips that Ignis thinks might be Noct trying to put her in good humor again. 

_No,_ Ignis thinks; what she says is, “I’m fine.”

Noct frowns at her, her body’s lazy roll coming to a halt. There’s a little surprise in her face, like the surprise when Ignis had stormed into the apartment after her day at the Citadel, and Ignis wonders if Noct’s surprise is in relation to Ignis’s anger or to the consequences of Noct’s conduct. Ignis watches as Noct props herself up on her elbow, putting her several inches higher than Ignis. “You’re still mad.”

Ignis rolls over onto her stomach, turning her face away from Noct. It elicits a hurt sound from Noct, a puff of breath like she’s been suckerpunched. Ignis closes her eyes, saying, “I’m tired, Noct.”

It’s hardly unexpected that Noct kisses Ignis’s shoulder, a firm, closed-mouth kiss that remains there for several heartbeats before Noct draws back. Ignis sighs, and when Noct presses another kiss against Ignis’s shoulder, just inches from where she pressed her first kiss, Ignis closes her eyes.

She doesn’t know why she’s so weak-willed when it comes to Noct, why she is so willing to lie down and take what is given to her. She’s angry—she knows that she’s still angry—but it feels twisted up inside her, the hot rage in her chest curling up with the warm arousal that is begin to wake up in her belly. She’s half-certain she should push Noct off her, try to put some distance between them. It’s Noct, though: Noct’s mouth dropping kisses along the angle of Ignis’s shoulder blade; Noct’s hand resting warm and heavy on the small of Ignis’s back; Noct’s soft breasts and peaked nipples that drag across Ignis’s back when Noct leans over to press a peck of a kiss on Ignis’s cheek.

Ignis can feel her skin begin to flush, her body tensing up in anticipation. She’s not sure she can tell the difference between her anger and her arousal anymore, and even if she could, she’s not sure she’d care. When Noct—presumably taking Ignis’s silence as assent—stretches her body over Ignis’s, it’s with a rolling thrust of her hips against Ignis’s arse. Ignis doesn’t moan, but she can’t stop the pop of her breath. Noct clicks her tongue behind her, and Ignis wishes she could understand why it only makes her feel like she’s burning hotter.

“Specs,” Noct says, her mouth shaping the nickname against Ignis’s skin, just below the nape of her neck. Ignis gives in and lets herself roll her hips, rocking between the bed and the heavy weight of Noct’s body. When Noct slots her leg between Ignis’s, nudging her thigh up against Ignis’s arse, Ignis moans and cants her hips back, rubbing against Noct’s thigh.

“You can, if you want.” Noct is beginning to sound breathless, and she’s rocking against Ignis’s thigh, the crease where her thigh reaches her arse. It feels like Ignis’s heart is trying to beat in time with Noct’s rocking, a rhythm that keeps losing itself, tripping and trying to catch up. Ignis is opening her eyes, blinking blearily at the pillow crumpled beneath her, just when Noct says, “You can hit me.”

It should feel like a bucket of cold water. It does, maybe, but it doesn’t do much to stop the heat that’s been building up in her body, curling through her belly and her thighs; it doesn’t stop hot ache that’s growing in her cunt.

“What?” she asks—asking Noct what she can mean, but asking herself, too, because she shouldn’t—

“You can hit me,” Noct repeats, sounding somewhere between fervent and maybe frantic. Noct’s hands have begun moving restlessly over Ignis’s back and sides, grasping for a second or two before sliding away to clutch elsewhere. “I want you to.”

“Noct—”

Noct pulls away without warning, and the speed with which she removes herself from Ignis leaves Ignis feeling cold and unmoored. She rolls over, just enough to see Noct, who is kneeling near the center of the bed, still within arm’s reach of Ignis. Noct is staring at Ignis, her eyes dark and her face flushed, and Ignis opens her mouth, then shuts it, uncertain of what she’s meant to say.

“Ignis,” Noct says, shifting over the mattress, like she’s trying to find something to rub against. Ignis can’t stop herself from looking down at Noct’s legs, the way Noct’s thighs are falling open as she squirms restlessly. There is a wet spot high up on Noct’s thigh, gleaming against Noct’s skin, and Ignis feels a sharp throb in her cunt when she realizes it’s from her, from when she was rocking back against Noct’s thigh. 

“Noct,” Ignis says back confusedly. She tries to look back up at Noct’s face, but ends up staring instead at Noct’s breasts, her darkened nipples. She wants to touch Noct—wants to run her hands across Noct’s soft belly and along the ticklish spots beneath her breasts. She wants to pull Noct down on top of her, wants to have Noct ride her thigh while she sucks on Noct’s nipples. She touches herself instead, slipping her hand between her thighs and cupping her palm, the heel of her hand bumping against her clit and her fingertips sliding along the sensitive lips. 

“I want—” Noct’s voice is husky. When Ignis glances up, she feels caught by the wet pinkness of Noct’s mouth, her lips and her tongue. “I want you to hit me.”

Noct is still staring at Ignis, but it’s not hard to see that Noct’s staring at Ignis’s hand, tucked between her thighs. Ignis can’t help it, can’t stop herself from rubbing her hand over her sex, the heel of her palm pressing hard against her clit as her hips rock up.

“I’ll order you,” Noct says, and she grabs Ignis’s wrist, pulling Ignis’s hand from beneath her thighs. “I want it, I want you to—”

“Yes,” Ignis interrupts, agreeing too quick and too stupid, stumbling through her want. “Yes, whatever you—whatever you want.”

Noct’s hand is warm and firm around Ignis’s wrist, and when she tugs, Ignis obeys, rolling up onto her knees. It puts her close to Noct, close enough that she can feel Noct’s breath on her cheek and neck. Noct is peering at Ignis, and when Ignis meets her eyes, Noct smiles awkwardly. “Yeah. That’s what—yeah.”

Ignis tries not to feel lost when Noct lets go of her wrist. She circles her wrist with her other hand, trying to trap the warm pressure from Noct’s grip. Noct is scooting over, twisting the sheets of the bed into a jumble; when she collapses onto her front, it’s close enough that her elbow knocks against Ignis’s knees. 

“How?” Ignis asks, her voice strange and tight in her ears. How does Noct want her to hit her? How is she supposed to do it? (How can she want it?)

Noct has rearranged herself so that her head is lying on her arms, and her face is turned toward Ignis, enough that she can look up toward her. Her face is—she looks unconcerned. She’s flushed, with her mouth pink and open and wet, with her eyes dilated and heavy-lidded; she looks unconcerned though, loose and open, like she will be happy with whatever Ignis does to her body. _Your body,_ Ignis had said, _isn’t yours_ ; she’s sorry about the truth of it. She wishes it could belong to her, that Noct could be all in Ignis’s care; she wishes she could own Noct’s body the way the Crown does, and more.

“You like my ass,” Noct says, and Ignis is distracted for a moment by the way Noct wiggles the arse in question, tilting it up for Ignis’s attention. Ignis’s interest and agreement must be obvious, because Noct laughs breathlessly, then says, “There, then. Hit me there.”

Ignis huffs with surprise, then asks, “Spank you? That’s what you want?”

“Mhmm,” Noct hums, then says, her voice still husky, “With your right hand.”

Her right hand—Ignis’s right hand—is slick from Ignis’s own cunt, and Ignis swallows hard when she thinks of it, of smearing her own slick onto Noct’s arse, to smear it down the cleft of Noct’s arse. She could push, could wiggle her hand between Noct’s thighs—could pet her fingers over Noct’s delicate lips as Noct sighs and parts her legs, spreading herself open. She could slip her slick fingers—two at first, while Noct is still tight; just enough to make Noct groan and try to squirm away—into Noct’s cunt, could thrust them in while she coaxes Noct to lift her arse up higher—

“Specs,” Noct complains loudly, and Ignis’s hand is trembling as she reaches out and lays it on Noct’s arse. Noct’s skin is so warm, soft and smooth, and Ignis drags her hand down the curve of Noct’s arse cheek slowly. The slick on her palm—her slick, _Ignis’s_ slick—smears across Noct’s skin, wet and glistening. There’s not much, though, and Ignis’s palm catches as what little slick there was is spread thin. She wishes there was more, wishes she could cover Noct in it—wishes she could cover Noct with herself. She lifts her hand, then brings it down with a _smack_.

Noct breathes in, a soft, inward sigh, and lies still beneath Ignis’s hand, even when Ignis rubs it over Noct’s arse, then lifts it so she can hit her again. A second smack—the percussive sound of flesh meeting flesh—and a second sigh from Noct. The third smack is harder; Ignis’s hand is already sore from when she’d slapped it against the counter, and the force of her palm against Noct’s body sends dull threads of pain running up her arm. Beneath her, Noct has finally made a hurt sound—a tiny, popping exhale, like the sort she makes when she’s been thrown across the room during training.

The left cheek or Noct’s arse is already turning red, a splotchy area roughly the height and width of Ignis’s hand. This isn’t the first time that Ignis has left a mark on Noct, but it’s the first time she’d done it like this, while hurt and anger are thrumming at the base of her breastbone; this is the first time—

“Go on.” Noct’s voice is rougher and huskier than before, and it’s like a hook that catches every part of Ignis, from her joints to her brain. She obeys—can’t do anything else, can’t do anything except lift her stinging hand from Noct’s arse and bring it down again, harder than before. 

A fourth, then a fifth, and that’s good—five is good, five is a prime number, easy to count and to segment, easy to partition just like Ignis’s brain feels partitioned, split into fragments of anger and love and hurt and lust and shame. Five is foundational enough for Ignis to cling to. 

So five strikes—Noct grunts at the fifth—and then Ignis shifts so that she can bring her hand down on Noct’s right cheek. 

“Again,” Noct says after six and seven, and eight and nine, and then ten; eleven and twelve, and thirteen and fourteen, then fifteen and, “Again.”

Her voice is as primal and as foundational as Ignis’s ability to count, and it grabs and pulls Ignis like fingers gripping her spine, like Ignis is a doll to be taken and positioned, turned this way and that. (There is surety in it, too—the same level of surety as Ignis has in the stability of the ground beneath her and the inevitability of the sun above her.)

“Again,” Noct says, and Ignis straddles that wavering line between a spanking and a beating. Her own hand is throbbing in time with her heartbeat, and the pulsing pain of bruises doesn’t feel very different from the pulsing of desire. There’s a thin, wavering line there, too—and another in Noct’s voice, in the sobbed gasps that sound like pleasure and pain and neither and both, like too many things for Ignis to grasp with her fragmented thoughts and with her five burning fingers. 

“Enough,” Ignis pants at last, when her hand has met Noct’s arse again, another _clap_ of flesh against flesh, and another sharp whimper from Noct. 

Noct’s arse is red and hot to the touch. Ignis rubs her hands over Noct’s arse again, feeling the way Noct shudders. It has to be sore, has to hurt; Ignis wonders how good it feels, the burning pain in the cheeks of Noct’s arse.

“‘S good,” Noct mumbles, the words slurred and barely distinct. Ignis tears her eyes away from Noct’s arse so she can look up toward Noct’s face. Noct’s still flushed, her face red and wet from sweat and tears, and there are strands of hair clinging to her damp face. Ignis reaches up without quite realizing what she’s doing, her fingers clumsily glancing over Noct’s hot face. 

“Is it?” Ignis asks. Her voice doesn’t sound like hers—it’s low and scratching, feels like it’s rumbling up along her sternum from a place deep in her breastbone.

“Mmm.” Noct’s eye cracks open, wet and glassy, and she squirms beneath Ignis, her arse rising then falling under Ignis’s hand. “‘S really good.”

Ignis lets her hand slide to the side, her thumb slipping into the cleft between the cheeks of Noct’s arse. It’s as hot as Noct’s arse cheeks, and Ignis swallows hard, then lets herself trail her thumb down past the pucker of Noct’s hole, along the tight skin of her perineum. Noct’s cunt is loose and wet, and when Ignis strokes her thumb over it, Noct sucks in a shaky breath.

She lets her thumb sink in, just up to the first knuckle—just enough that she can press the pad of her thumb against the inside of Noct’s cunt. Noct’s next breath is as shaky as the last, and Ignis can feel Noct’s cunt tighten around her thumb, like Noct is trying to draw her in.

“Specs,” Noct says—whines—but Ignis is drawing her thumb out and away, watching the strings of slick that cling to her thumb, that stretch as she pulls her thumb away. One snaps, and it shines wet and thick where it lands on Noct’s inner thigh.

“You liked me hitting you,” Ignis says, her voice still low and scratchy, still sounding foreign in her ears. “You got so wet—” She lowers her thumb enough to tease it over the delicate folds of Noct’s lips; it slides along easily, her thumb as wet and slick as Noct’s folds. Noct is whining again.

“I did—I did, I like everything you do. Specs, please—”

She smacks Noct again, open-handed and hard. The pain travels up her arm, the delicious burn of embers crumbling under too much heat. She shouldn’t like it, not like this—not this much—but Noct is squirming beneath her, her body hot and loose and open, laid out for however Ignis wants it. For however Noct wants Ignis to want it. 

She’s aching, like the burning-ember heat of her body is all being drawn to her groin, to her cunt and her clit. It’s less daring and more thoughtless when she swings her leg over Noct, straddling Noct’s spread thighs, and it’s less thoughtless and more desperate when she slides forward, rubbing her sex—her clit and her cunt, the sensitive folds of her lips—over the hot, reddened skin of Noct’s arse. 

The sound Noct makes—a higher, longer whine, something almost like a wail—seems to thrum through Ignis’s body, from the core of her sex and up through her sternum. She can hear herself breathing from a distance, heavy gasps that feel like they’re being dragged out from the lowest part of her belly. There is a long moment that she rests there, still and frightened; it’s like perching on the edge of a high place, her head spinning from a lack of oxygen and the fear she might fall. Noct whines again, and Ignis lays her hands on the small of Noct’s back—spreads her fingers wide, and slides her hands up Noct’s back as she spreads herself over Noct. 

“Like this?” she asks; she begs; she kisses into the sweaty skin of Noct’s shoulder. She has to close her eyes when Noct hisses, “ _Yes_.”

It’s not hard to find her place in this; not hard to lift herself over Noct and to brace her hands on Noct’s lower back; not hard to take what Noct is willing to give her. It’s just as easy to find her rhythm—short thrusts that lengthen. It’s easy: the wet slide of her sex over Noct’s arse, the pleasure that’s burning hotter in her, her mouth open and gasping like she can drink down Noct’s pained moans. She can feel her orgasm just out of reach, like an inevitability, like the certainty of falling from a high ledge. It’s there, just past her, waiting for her fingers to slip and let her tumble down. 

Noct reaches back, fumbling at her, and she grabs at Ignis’s thigh, digging her fingers in and dragging Ignis higher and tighter and closer. Ignis’s orgasm slams into her, like the earth rising up to meet a fallen body, like porcelain shattering on impact, and it tears her control from her. Her hips jerk, short, messy spasms that grind her clit into the dip between Noct’s arse and back as her orgasm blasts its way through her.

She’s trembling when it’s finally done; her limbs feel weak and disjointed, like she’s been picked up and shaken, then tossed back to the ground. Noct’s hand is still on her thigh, but her grip has loosened, and as Ignis shudders, Noct begins to skate her thumb over Ignis’s skin. Even that—the delicate touch of Noct’s thumb—feels like too much, like Ignis’s nerves are as flayed as her mind. She shudders again, and she opens her mouth to— She closes her mouth instead, and she lets go of Noct’s body, and her own as well; she lets herself slip down, like she’s let go of a ledge of earth and is sliding under the water. She spreads herself out over Noct, letting Noct’s body buoy her up; she tucks her face into the curve of Noct’s neck and shoulder, and she breathes against Noct’s skin like Noct is the only air she needs.


End file.
